Murder came before the Word

Michael Reilly
Weikie is a songwriter of music that delves into the nature of our world, and who we are within it. His banjo and guitar playing is divine, with a sound that elevates these modern folk tunes to another level.
Favorite track: Vixen.

"Weikie (pronounced ‘why-kee’) is Adam Weikert, multi-instrumentalist, music technician and member of Her Name Is
Calla. His second album, Murder Came Before The Word is released via Function Records on 1st December 2014.

Adam’s sound is undoubtedly folk, steeped in Americana but with an ear for modern songwriting and production techniques. The result is an album that could sit proudly beside contemporaries such as Bright Eyes and Aaron West and The Roaring Twenties. He arrived at his sound almost in reverse, using classical, computer and minimalist music as a starting point and absorbing and adapting them into the shape present on the album. It’s less a sound of the past as it is the sound of a future reverted back to a pre-industrial era, with pre-programmed instruments blending seamlessly with clawhammer banjo and electric guitar. It’s a fascinating take that’s sure to appeal to both traditionalists and those with a hunger for the new.

Murder Came Before The Word is the follow up to his EP The Sapling From Ash. The title of the album is a reaction to society’s tendency to scapegoat creative media as the surrogates to violence and ill will. It suggests that evil can sometimes be intrinsic and solitary, that it came before we’d even given it a name. The album is an exploration of the personas of the self, and how they are reflected through the world. The first four tracks are an allegoric exploration of the impacts of war, fidelity and loss across several generations of a family reeling from the Great War. Following this, Adam then allows the listener to peek inside his soul as he attempts to parse and understand the every day world."

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The folds of the quire turned to dust in his hand,
the vapours they cast to his spine they now bind.
They crept through the years and the wars without din,
searching for palms now to find their way in.

Quod nomen mihi est?

I picked up my gait and fell down aside the lake,
I drank of my fill 'til my my spite was then slake.
I gave her my day, my night, and my gun;
she gave me a knife and told me to be done.

Quod nomen mihi est?

All roads lead to Rome, and all Romes lead to ruin;
Romulus pig dead and rationed as food
I packed up myself and lay dormant and shelved,
brushing aside what little I felt.

Quod nomen mihi est?

Track Name: Vixen

I will lead the fox back to the woods,
you will tear the magpie from the thorn,
cast his fates out lone amidst the plains
harbingers of duties bound and slain.

I have brought the fire within these walls;
you see only ashes white and bleak.
Set asunder kneed into the land
reapers of the wheat and not the man

and I’m burning out the winter
with the flames you left behind.
A needle, a thread, and a long time,
will see this all unwind.

Track Name: Letters from the Front line

The Citadel fell into the earth
a sinkhole,
a placard,
and dirt.

and I'll miss you more than broken limbs;
I'd rather have the hurt.

Sappers to the frontline drawn
to tear apart the clay,
out this trench of broken hearts
we hope to find our way.

But I will try my best for you
yes I will try my best for you
I will try my level best for you

My darling,
Sabres rattle in the still
time heals
time heals or it kills.

But I'll be the phoenix
if you'll be the flame.
As we rise from these ashes
to claim,
to claim our love again.

My darling,
I'm underground.
The water's short but we'll die before we're found.
It can't be long, it won't be long now,
but I'll find my to you.
Through a thousand throats,
a shattered arch,
adieu.

Well I am home now,
and what have you done?
You coquette while I sleep beside a gun.
Laying in that bed with him
while our country goes to war.
As I watch my friends give up their lives;
is this what they're dying for?

And I take it all back.
I take it all back.

Because love is just a moment
that we calcify in time;
as it rises it will fall again
the dead leading the blind.
and the further from the flame we draw
the less we feel the heat,
now the needle barely breaks the skin
and I hope we never meet
again.

Track Name: Poppy

Going to the front line,
rifle in my hand
gonna stoke a fire
burn back this land.

Could've been a doctor
could have been a thumb,
but now I'm just a number
laying in the Somme

Poppy and a brisket
sheets turned down,
he's never coming back though
never coming back.

Thought I saw your face there,
my legs broke down.
Everywhere's a young man,
running out this town

Help, he's our sun.
we're all someone’s sun.

Standing on the broad moor
thinking what was won,
writing out a blank cheque
with the barrel of a gun.

Hoping it's a mistake;
letter in the mail.
Father stopped a'checking,
and fell into the pale.

Help, he's our sun
we're all someone's sun.

Thinking about your grandkids,
looking like you.
Father had a breakdown,
Mother had a breakdown;

she said she shouldn't let you
settle out that score.
Your daughter didn't think that
now she's flying out to war

Help, she's our sun
We're all someone’s sun.

Track Name: Caimans in the reeds

I am nothing
I am no one
I am nothing darling
now be gone

There's Caimans in the reeds.

Track Name: Damocles

Something lost,
along the way.

This tryst is parched,
a salt plained lust.

You left this stone,
where hearts should beat,
where hearts once beat,
where hearts should be.

Hare stalks with his coffer
tethered fast around his waist.
A dragnet through the forest
with his hauls inside its chase,
of roses tumbled litany
in a dainty Arabesque.
Such a weight,
such a weight,
such a Waste.

He stumbles across some autumn fall,
and spots adder in the brush.
Who arcs his back and posits now
'my dear Hare why the rush?'.
Hare stares down with a pause yet
he hears not what was said,
then he's gone
yeah he's gone
he is gone.

Further in the woods he goes;
back aching ever more.
A bear then offers sanctuary,
and opens out his door.
'Hare that's such a heavy thing
why not let it go?'
but he can't,
but he can't,
but I can't.

His bones now paring out his furs
That has sodden in the rain.
Each step takes a hundred breathes,
and a thousand more refrains.
Owl says ' if you were a bird
would you not fly away?'
but I'm not
but I'm not
but I'm not

His spine curled back
and dragged him down,
as blood drained from his face.
A mottled paw thrown limply out,
and crawls barely a pace.
A deer comes past this laden
and offers hare a hand,
that he won't take,
he won't take,
why won't it take?

Clouds clot lonely in the sky,
Hare cannot move for mud.
His quaking legs let out a crack,
and with that he is done.
His koffer falls down to the way,
and bursts up the banks;
there is nothing there
but guilt that's pulling rank.

Hare’s last breath pushed out alone,
as the first that he had drawn.
He always thought he had it,
but when had he found it gone.

Track Name: London

London,
you black lung;
Sucking out my air as if you have none.
Floating
the bodies down,
then spitting out your ambergris of spent young.
Eyes watch
a white flag moon,
revels in that something of it's got too happen soon.
Waiting.
We're just waiting.
As our teeth thin
with every winter,
with every…

Too far,
we've gone too far;
and I cannot see the wood for the trees.
You pulled
a hatchet out,
with a grin, with a grin;
was there ever any doubt?